A Painted Suicide
by xgoodbyexlovex
Summary: Roger, Mark, and Collins struggle with the discovery of April's suicide. Completed.
1. Dark, Dizzy MerryGoRound

**Disclaimer: All characters and story belong to Jonathon Larson.**

The afternoon found Mark pacing in the "kitchen" of the loft. Fuming. Again. Maureen was supposed to have been home two hours ago. And she wasn't. Yet again.

Reading a book on the duct-taped couch, Collins glanced at him. "Oh, Marky, boy. Don't get your undies in a bunch." Mark whipped his head around to glare at the genius. "She'll turn up sometime. She always does."

Mark sighed before collapsing on a chair. Yeah, she would turn up. Probably smelling like some other guy's cologne. Then it would be the same story. She got sidetracked when she was shopping. She found another audition that took up most of the day. She had "pressing business" at work (though what "pressing business" meant working at a cheap diner, Mark couldn't figure out). Then there would be another argument, another fight, more accusations, more name-calling. Then she would leave in a snit, and Mark would be left home alone. Again. Then the whole crazy, pointless, tiring roulette would begin again with Mark pacing the kitchen, waiting for her to come back home.

The phone rang. Mark practically jumped out of his chair to reach it. Collins rolled his eyes. "Whipped," he muttered under his breath.

"Maureen!" Mark screeched into the phone.

There was no answer.

"Hello?" Mark demanded.

"Mark?" A raspy voice asked.

"Roger? What—"

"She's dead," Roger sobbed over the line.

Mark's body turned to ice. "What?"

Hearing Mark's tone, Collins silently closed his book and looked up at him.

"April. She's dead," Roger whispered.

"Stay there. We'll be there in five minutes."

Mark slammed the phone onto the receiver and yanked his jacket and scarf on.

"What happened?" Collins demanded.

"It's April. She's dead," Mark choked out. He dug through the junk on the counter to find a piece of paper and a pen.

"What! How!"

"I don't know." As Collins scrambled off of the couch and pulled his coat on, Mark hesitated for a second, considering what he should write. "Maureen--stay here. DO NOT LEAVE." His anger flared as he threw the paper on the table. Where the hell was Maureen when they needed her?

The two friends then raced out of the loft, both of them scared to think what they were going to find at April's.

**Please review. I'd love to hear what you think.**


	2. She Died

**Disclaimer: Everything RENT belongs to Jonathon Larson.**

Roger couldn't get the image out of his head.

The pale, bony hand creeping over the edge of the bathtub. The cold water covering her thin, naked body, her head fully submerged, red hair floating eerily, shifting at each underwater disturbance. The dropped knife lying at the foot of the bathtub. And the blood.

The blood was everywhere.

They took her body away. Carefully, the men lifted her out of the water, easily carrying her tiny frame to where the body bag was.

"Don't look," Mark whispered, kneeling beside Roger. Collins cupped his palm softly to Roger's cheek and gently turned his face away from the scene, wiping away fresh tears. When the ambulance crew was out of sight, Collins let his hand drop from Roger's face. With a sigh, he stood up from his position on the floor. Hesitantly, he walked a few steps toward the bathroom. Glancing quickly through the doorway and wincing at the morbid scene, he gently closed the door and took a deep breath.

"Let's go, you guys." His voice was hushed. "They'll clean it up when we leave."

Mark nodded, standing up. His icy blue eyes looked back down at Roger, huddled against the wall where they had found him. His knees were drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, his face blank, eyes unseeing. Mark thought he looked like a lost, little boy, not like the egotistical, confident rock god that the filmmaker knew. Out of everything he had seen today, the sudden change in Roger scared Mark the most.

"Roger?" He asked hesitantly.

There was a flicker in Roger's green eyes, but he didn't move.

"Roger, let's go." Collins took a step back toward them. "Let's get you home." He reached out to the musician, his fingers brushing against the worn leather jacket. Roger flinched under Collins' touch, as if the hand had burned him.

"Don't touch me," Roger hissed.

"Let's go home. This is no place to be," Collins reasoned.

"Just leave me alone," Roger whimpered, shutting his eyes against tears and pulling his knees tighter to his chest.

Collins met Mark's eyes. Mark shrugged helplessly and looked away.

"Please." Roger's voice was barely audible. "I need some time alone."

His two friends shared another glance, considering if they could leave him. Mark's eyes roamed across the room, taking in Roger, still crouched against the wall, then the emptiness of the apartment, and finally resting on the closed bathroom door. His eyes came back to meet Collins', and he nodded.

"We'll wait outside for you," Collins said. He led Mark into the hallway and down the creaky old stairs, leaving Roger alone in the apartment.

The musician opened his eyes when he heard the door shut. Taking in the vacant room, he sobbed, a new wave of tears threatening to break free. He got up, feeling as if he had aged thirty years in the last three hours.

Slowly, hesitantly, he stepped toward the closed bathroom door. A part of him was unbelieving. It was all a big joke, a hoax. It had to be. April wouldn't do something like this. She was wild, fierce, brave, a fighter. She would never consider giving up, taking the easy way out. Not his April.

As his hands reached for the doorknob, he felt something crush under his feet. Looking down, he noticed the bouquet of red roses, delicate petals lying limp on the floor in the puddle of cheap wine. He stared at it for a long moment, suddenly overcome with an enormous pain. Taking a shuddering breath, he turned the knob and pushed open the door.

**Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews so far. Hope you liked this chapter. There's two more to go.**


	3. That Grip of Hurt, That Pint of Shame

**Disclaimer: Everything RENT is Jonathon Larson's.**

**_Italics_ are flashbacks.

* * *

"D'you think he's alright in there?" Mark asked.**

The chilly September wind tore through his thin, threadbare jacket, making him shiver. His fingers weeded nervously through the ragged ends of his beloved scarf and pulled it tighter around his neck in a futile attempt to keep the cool air at bay.

Collins shook his head. "I don't know, " he replied softly, almost to himself. "Man," he continued. "What—what the fuck, man?" He laughed bitterly. "I mean..." He trailed off, lost in thought, staring across the seedy New York streets as dusk settled the city.

"Yeah," Mark whispered, biting his lip. Fresh tears welled up from behind his glasses. He turned away from Collins and wiped them away. "Poor April..."

He took in a ragged breath, lost in his own mind. Life was becoming more like fiction. These things don't happen to people he knows, people he loves. They happen in romance novels, blockbuster movies and cheesy screenplays, to celebrities, to faceless people in the newspapers, but not to the people he cares about, not to his family. Not their April. Everything was falling apart, and he couldn't stop it. More than ever, Mark felt the outer world closing in on them. In his own mind, he had constructed a protective space around the people he loved, thinking, naively, that well-wishing would keep them from harm. But now their little bubble had burst open. Now they were open, exposed, unshielded. Nothing could stop the cruel world from destroying them.

* * *

The blood. Again it greeted Roger. A stark contrast to the dirty white of the bathroom.

The artistic part of Roger's mind found the whole morbid scene beautiful. The red against white became symbols. Passion and death against birth and renewal. A battle between the warm, inviting red of blood against the cold, heartless white of modernism. The blood seemed like it was painted on the walls and floor. A painted suicide—an artist's death.

His eyes took in the setting, his mind photographing every detail, his heart knowing that he would never forget it. It was painful. But he wanted it to hurt, wanted the pain. He wanted to suffer, since it was his fault that she was dead.

* * *

_He sang his heart out that one night. As the last chord rang out, he raised his head and lifted his arms, breathing in the glory. He had the world at his feet._

_April came backstage after the show, as always. Hot, sweaty, drunk, he clung to her, pulling her into a passionate kiss. She smiled against his mouth. _

"_Great show," she whispered._

"_I know," he answered, grinning._

_After a few more drinks, they walked (or staggered) home. When they arrived at the door of April's building, Roger stopped her from going in._

"_Wait, I have a surprise for you," Roger said, smiling._

"_Oh, really?" April's crooked smile answered his._

"_Yes, really. Come on." He pulled her into the alley next to her building._

"_What..." She yelped as she tripped over garbage from the dumpster._

_Roger laughed, pulling her deeper into the dark alleyway._

"_Are you going to rape me?" April asked._

"_No," Roger said. He looked around. "Ok, this is good."_

"_For what?"_

"_Sit down. There." He pointed to a stoop._

_She sat down slowly. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a small package. _

"_Voila!" He said, grinning proudly._

"_What is it?" she asked, her gray eyes guarded. _

"_This, my love," he knelt down in front of her, and took her wrists in each hand. "Is heaven," he finished in a whisper near her ear._

"_I don't know..."_

_He cupped her face in his hands, his fingers still clutching the tiny bag. _

"_Don't you trust me?" He asked, searching her eyes._

_She stared back for a long moment. Finally, she nodded, her eyes still troubled despite the grin she forced onto her face._

"_Yes. I trust you."_

_Roger reached for the needle._

* * *

It was his fault. He brought her into everything, the drugs, the sex. She had loved him, trusted him, and he had let her down, betrayed her. He had believed they were invincible. Yeah, everyone was dying everywhere they looked, being destroyed by disease, each other, or from the inside, but nothing could touch them.

"Not us," Roger whispered, staring at the bloody mess.

He backed slowly out of the bathroom, the scene forever imprinted in his mind. Fresh tears ran down his face, and he did nothing to stop them. When he reached the door, he took one last look at the apartment. Already, it felt lifeless. A morbid feeling permeated the space—a feeling of death and decay. Invisible, yet so think Roger felt that if he reached out his hand, he could grab it.

He walked out the door, a little piece of crushed, white paper clutched in his hand.

* * *

**Thanks for all the reviews. You guys are all so nice. One more chapter to go.**


	4. Her Name Was April

**Last chapter. Again, everything in _italics_ is flashbacks. And I don't own anything RENT, it's all Jonathon Larson's (I wish I owned Roger though...).  
**

* * *

"_I hate the fall," April said, breaking into the comfortable silence._

"_That was random," Roger replied._

_They were sharing a "picnic"—if crackers and a bottle of water constituted a picnic—in the park. The unusually cool September air had a soft breeze that ruffled her hair. He lounged on the damp grass, stretched out like a cat in the sun, while she sat next to him, softly running her fingers through his hair._

"_Maybe it's my name," she continued. "I mean, in April, everything's alive, being born, beginning. And in fall, it's all dying." She stopped for a moment, then said, "Wouldn't it be ironic if I died in the fall?"_

_Roger stared up at her, troubled. "Don't talk like that."_

"_I'm just saying."_

_He studied her. "You're too morbid for your name."_

_Laughing, she leaned down for a kiss._

* * *

_Later that day, Roger ran up the stairs, two at a time, a bouquet of roses he had bought off a street vendor in one hand, a very, _very_ cheap bottle of wine in the other. April's morbid statement had troubled him. She had seemed depressed, so Roger thought the situation called for a "cheering-April-up" party (and yes, the idea of getting "slightly intoxicated" and having hot, passionate, albeit drunken, sex was a factor, too). And a small amount of smack rested safely in his pocket, just in case they needed it._

_Reaching her door, he knocked with the hand holding the flowers. When she didn't come to answer, he knocked again. No reply._

"_April?" He called. Maybe she wasn't back from her doctor's appointment. He tried the doorknob. Unlocked. He pushed the door open._

"_April?" He stepped in and closed the door behind him. He was struck by the blank _emptiness_ he felt. A shiver ran down his back. Something was wrong. Very wrong._

_His nervousness mounting, he called out a third time. "April." He set down the bottle of wine on the table and looked around. The bathroom door was closed. He walked up to it, knocked. "April?" He asked._

_He opened it. The air left his lungs. His mind reeled. It couldn't be. She wouldn't._

"_No," he whispered, backing away from the bathroom. "No, no..." he kept repeating himself, trying to keep reality from tearing him apart. The words became louder, until it was a ragged, raw scream. _

"_No, no, NO!" A sob tore through his throat. The flowers dropped from his limp hand, forgotten. He staggered backwards into the table. It shook under his weight, and the bottle fell onto the floor, glass shattering everywhere, the liquid drenching the bouquet._

_He leaned heavily against the table, gasping for breath, tears streaming down his face. He tried to think, tried to keep his thoughts away from her, fuck, what had she done, what should he do, who could help him... His mind took a long time to work. He tried to grasp at his thoughts, tried to stay sane. He felt like he was on the edge of going mad. He needed help, he needed someone...Mark. Mark helps. Mark can help. He clutched onto that thought and nothing else. Mark. Call Mark. Call Mark. Roger turned to reach for the phone on the table, but a little piece of white paper caught his eye. It was her handwriting. He stared at it, the words shattering his world. No. It couldn't be..._

Baby,  
I'm sorry.  
We've got AIDS.

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**Hey everyone. Yes, it's over, but thanks so much for reviewing. You all made me happy. :smile: This is my first story, so it was kind of short, but I hope to do some more soon (maybe something happier?). I'm thinking of doing a sequel to this one since you all seemed to like it, and I just got another idea for a different story, so hopefully I will get started on those two soon. Thanks again for reading.**


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